It felt like a thousand years since Paisley had been woken up in the middle of the night to be told that her younger brother Max had been kidnapped, and yet the sun was just now starting to peek through the windows of her office.

She'd spent the last several hours in a tense meeting with her advisers, sending orders around to the various armed forces that Nadar had. Investigators were on their way to Redfern as well as a small battalion of soldiers. The rest were gearing up for war.

Without an official investigation being done yet, not too much was known about the attack on the school. Eyewitness accounts thus far had been very scattered and unreliable. So far all they had been able to gather was that the students and staff had been ambushed in the middle of the night, the attackers and their daemons had sought out unsettled students in particular. It seemed that they weren't afraid to murder anyone that stood in their way, either. No one had been able to pinpoint who these assailants were or why they had done the attacking. Several eilemaiden had been used against the students and staff, but Paisley knew that it had something to do with Deilig. When Hadley had come to her before she had been hesitant to join forces. Now she knew she had been mistaken. Horribly, horribly mistaken.

After Paisley had delegated tasks to her advisers she had immediately found Nils and informed him on everything that had happened. For the first time since waking she allowed herself to fall apart.

Now the two of them sat in her office, hunched over a map of Deilig. She hadn't told her advisers of her plan, but Paisley was going to get in and get Max out. She would get him out. He would be okay, she would make sure of it.

When Paisley had burst into Nils' room to tell him what had happened to Max, and all the other kids at Redfern, it had taken everything in him not to immediately go into panic mode. Of course his first thought when he heard about the organized band of murderers who had broken unto Redfern and made off with dozens of unsettled kids was that it was the same organization that had taken him and Henri and Petra and so many others, that it had somehow revived itself after being destroyed and was now back with a vengeance.

But that wasn't it. It was Deilig, Paisley said, and their overloridian. That confused Nils but he didn't question it. The next thing he knew Paisley was breaking down, and for once it was him trying to hold her together instead of the other way around.

It didn't take long for Paisley to pull herself back together on her own, though. She was strong, after all. And now they were making a plan together, and it felt like back when they had first met all over again, only now their roles were reversed. He almost said so out loud, but then thought it might not be appropriate.

She was going over a map, pointing out the location of the Deilig overloridian's mansion, asking for advice about entrance and exit strategies. She kept making it sound like she wanted to do this alone. "Um, Paisley," he said quietly, during a very brief pause in Paisley's planning. "I, I think I could help you. If I went with you. I mean I...I know I messed up when we went to save Henri together. But I really think I could help this time. I sort of have experience with, with breaking into places and things."

He looked down at the map, knowing that was nothing to be proud of, but if it could help Paisley and Max now...

---

Meanwhile, Petra had been overhearing bits and pieces of conversation from workers on the estate. She kept hearing things like "attack," "abduction," and "investigation." Like Nils, she initially thought it might have something to do with her old organization, so she decided she was going to pay Paisley a visit. The little overloridian had better not been keeping things from her that she deserved to know.

She casually let herself into Paisley's suite, ignoring the protests of some of her workers, and made her way to the office. Before she could enter though, she heard voices inside. She decided to stop and listen before making her presence known.

"You'd do that? For Max?" Paisley asked. Nils knew how dangerous this mission was, knew what he would be risking by going.

"Thank you," she told him. "Thank you, for being here, for helping me." Despite only losing her cool for a short time earlier, she'd been holding back hysterics all morning. But she had to believe everything would be okay. "We're going to get in there, and we are going to get him back. He'll be okay. Everything will be okay."

"Of course I would," Nils replied. He would do anything for Paisley and her family. How could he not, after everything she had done for him and his brother?

All of the sudden the door opened behind them, making Nils start. He turned around to see, not one of Paisley's advisors like he'd been expecting, but Petra of all clio standing there with an icy look on her face. What in the world was she doing here? He tensed up. He was never comfortable being around Petra, and she was giving him her usual cold look of disdain.

"Was that a fucking joke I just heard?" she asked, looking between the two of them. Her gaze settled on Paisley. "You're going to take him on an important mission with you?" She nodded her head towards Nils, who winced slightly.

Petra knew he was uncomfortable around her. At least, more uncomfortable than he was usually. She wasn't sure if it was out of fear, or shame, or some combination, but she didn't care. It caused her both annoyance and satisfaction at the same time.

Paisley was just as shocked as Nils when Petra stormed in through the door. She went to hide the map before the Petra made it very clear that she knew exactly what they were planning.

"How long have you been listening?" she demanded, ignoring everything Petra had said. Paisley tried not to get angry, especially not with Petra who had been hurt so badly in the past, but today she was pissed. Making Nils feel like crap was not okay, and it was especially not okay right now when Paisley's little brother was in danger. Every nerve in Paisley's body felt like it was a live wire right now and she was balancing very, very carefully on the edge of losing it.

Petra raised her eyebrows. Kind and patient little Paisley had never snapped at her like that before, no matter how nasty Petra was to her. It was almost kind of amusing. "Long enough to hear your shitty plan," she replied. "You know, I'm surprised you want to help, Nils. You were smart enough to stay out of it when me and your brother took down our old group."

Nils wasn't looking at her anymore, instead he was staring down at the map trying valiantly to not react to anything she was saying. Petra continued.

"All I'm saying is, unless you're planning to make this a suicide mission, you might want to bring someone with you who's-" she paused, initially wanting to end with actually competant, but something made her switch to slightly softer wording at the last second, "-more experienced."

"Why do you treat him like that?" Paisley asked, trying to reign in her anger. "Stop acting like he isn't right here and act like a decent human being! I don't have time to argue with you or be try to be nice--Deilig has my brother and if you think you're so much better than we are then stop standing around and help me."

Her words were equal part rant and plea. It didn't matter if she was angry at Petra or if she wanted to reassure Nils. She didn't have time for any of that right now. All that mattered was that Max was missing and that Paisley had no idea what Kole or his evil army was doing to him.

Petra actually smirked. She kind of liked this new, angry Paisley. Certainly an improvement of the perfect, sickly sweet version she was used to. "I treat him like that because I used to be nice to him, and look where that got me," she said. This time he actually opened his mouth to say something but Petra cut him off. This wasn't the time for that conversation. "And I am helping you, by pointing out that if the two of you go by yourselves you'll probably just die. Let me come with you."

At first, Nils didn't understand why Petra was offering to help at all. She hated him, as she kept making very clear, and she wasn't very fond of Paisley either. And why would she care at all about Paisley's brother, or any of the other kids?

Maybe because, like you, she can relate to them, Tanith pointed out.

Maybe that was true. Despite everything she had done, Nils had never thought of Petra as a bad clio. She really had been nice to him in the past, and only hated him now because he and Henri had left her behind. And she had helped take down the trafficking organization. She said she only did it out of revenge, but maybe somewhere deep down, a part of her had done it to save other kids from suffering like they had.

He looked at Paisley, who looked more angry and upset than he had ever seen her before. He hated seeing her this way. "I think you should let her," he said.

"Oh yeah, we used to do business there sometimes when we weren't in the cities," Petra said, looking down at the map. "Organized crime is pretty big there. Especially at that one club."

Her and Nils glanced at each other, and then quickly away again. They both knew the other was probably thinking about the same thing: Not even their bosses, who had essentially ruled Stonecraft City unopposed, had wanted to cross the Deilig crime bosses if they could help it. Some really deprived shit went on there, and while their organization had no trouble looking to extend business ties, they had never, ever tried to make enemies when they went there.

Nils immediately felt terrible when Paisley saw his and Petra's shared look and freaked out. He didn't want to make her worry even more than she already was. "It's just, it's where all the crime bosses made their deals and stuff. And, um..."

"There were rumors that their overloridian did business there," Petra finished. "We never saw him, though."

Paisley had been afraid of the man from day one. He was rude and overbearing and, from what Paisley knew now, evil. They should have done something sooner. She shouldn't have just given troops to Earlas--she and Hadley should have went in there as soon as something was fishy. They shouldn't have given this horrible man an opportunity to hurt all those poor innocent school children. It made her sick, thinking of all those that had been taken, or worse, murdered at their school.

"They've built this wall," Paisley said, choosing not to ask Petra to expand on the night club. She gestured to the map and traced the black line that surrounded Deilig. "Gods, how did we let it get this far!"

"Oh! Um, yes," Nils said, genuinely surprised that Petra was admitting he could do something. He had to admit, as messed up and twisted as things were between them, it almost sort of felt good to have her here planning with them. Back in the old days she had always looked out for him, and he'd never forget that. Even if she had, er, tried to kill him several months ago. Gods this whole thing was messed up.

She'd never spent time in Deilig. She'd visited, sure, but only to the estate of the overloridian. Paisley had had so much on her plate in Nadar after she'd settled that she hadn't had nearly as much time to visit the other eilemaiden as she wanted; not that Deilig would have been very high on that list, anyway.

She studied the map, looking around the wall to see what was the most practical point of entry. They couldn't be certain until they got there, of course--who knew what guards Kole had stationed around his borders. The river that fed Lake Pontchartrain ran along the eastern side of Deilig. That would probably be overrun with soldiers, or at least civilian workers in Deilig who'd have to man the plumbing and water retrieval.

"What about the southern border?" Paisley asked, moving her finger to the lowest point in Deilig. "Away from the river, away from the entrance..." Sure, that was the heart of the Forest of Linius, which was known to be a dangerous place, but perhaps that would give them even more cover.

Once inside, who knew where they would be keeping the students. The estate lay at the heart of Deilig, but that wouldn't be practical, over a hundred students were missing. Where could they be keeping them?

Petra rolled her eyes at him, as if the answer were obvious. "We'll just have to find one of the guards, or a soldier," she said. "The wall is bound to be crawling with them. Get one alone, see what he knows."

"Oh," Nils replied. He didn't need to ask how she intended to do that. It also went unspoken yet understood that he'd leave that aspect of the mission to her.

Sitting here planning a mission with Petra was starting to feel very nostalgic, and not in a good way. They had gone on break-ins together in the past, alongside his brother. And of course anytime something had gone wrong, it had been because of him. What if this went wrong because of him, too? What if he ruined their only chance to save Max?

Stop that, Tanith told him. You said you wanted to go. Paisley trusts you. They need you to get inside. You can do this.

He wasn't completely reassured, but he knew she was right. Paisley needed him now, just like he had needed her in the past. She had helped him save Henri back when she barely even knew him, what kind of clio would be be if he didn't help her save Max now?

Under normal circumstances Paisley would have balked at the idea of what Petra was implying, but she had to remind herself that under normal circumstances they wouldn't be breaking into Deilig, either. And Paisley would do anything to get Max back. Anything.

She withdrew from the map, taking a step away. "I want to go now." She had plenty of supplies ready in her exploring pack, and plenty of extras for Petra and Nils. "I don't want to wait." Now that they had the basics of the plan there was no use in talking more. They had no idea what to expect when they got there--all they could do was move forward and think on their toes.

Marisol had flown to Nadar as fast as she possibly could. By some incredible luck, the floating island happened to be right above the regular island, making it a surprisingly short trip. She prayed to every god that may or may not exist in Amelia that Paisley would be home, and would let her join a team to save Skye and the others, unlike her asshole of a boyfriend.

She burst into Paisley's home, blurted out some incoherent explanation to her workers, and rushed to her office. She got there just in time to hear,

I want to go now. I don't want to wait.

She flung the door open. "I'm coming with you!" she announced breathlessly.

Instead of an elite team of soldiers like Liam was supposedly preparing, Paisley was standing there with her boyfriend and some blonde woman.

"Marisol?" Paisley asked, confused and slightly irritated. She wanted to leave--she didn't have time for confrontations or time to lie to her about where they were going. But then she registered what Marisol had said--

Marisol wrote:I'm coming with you!

"Wait, what?"

She took in Marisol's rushed appearance; she looked like she had recently touched a live wire--her face was bright, her eyes were wide, but she had dark circles underneath them and her hair was wild. It didn't make sense for her to be in Nadar at a time like this. Why wasn't she with Liam?

Nils vaguely remembered Marisol from that party Paisley had taken him to. Just by looking at her, she really didn't seem like the type of girl who should be going on a mission like this. She seemed like she was just a normal girl, after all. But at the same time, he had been in her shoes before, in a way. He couldn't blame her for wanting to come. He looked at Paisley, wondering what her answer would be.

---

Petra still didn't really know who the fuck this girl was, nor did she really care. As long as she didn't get in the way on their mission, she could come along, Petra supposed. She could even wind up being useful as a distraction or something.

And just like that, everything about Marisol made sense. Paisley didn't even think about refusing her. Not once did she think about Marisol getting in the way or not being strong or capable enough to join the mission. She just nodded at her and said simply, "Alright. We'll fill you in on the plan on the way there."